Gaming has become a popular pass time for many since the advent of the 21st century and its exponential growth in recent years has left people demanding more and more power from their machines that support their gaming experience. While some favor console grade gaming, most prefer gaming on PCs because of their superior graphical processing power, quality and value for money. Gaming at a 4K resolution with the highest graphical setting on a game results in the best visual quality and it might be surprising at first to see it become a possibility at a price point of approximately $1500.
Utilizing some of the best hardware available on the market, the PC uses a Gigabyte Ga-7170x Gaming Motherboard with an Intel i7 6700K clocked at 4GHz and 16GB of Corsair Vengeance RAM. For a full list of the hardware used, follow the link here. Aesthetically, the PC looks great especially coupled with the ability customize color preferences on the video card and motherboard. The optional HJ110i GTX Liquid CPU cooler also adds a touch of color but this comes at an additional cost of $100. Nonetheless, this combination of color within the upside-down Corsair 600C case truly makes for a unique look.
Although looks are important, what really counts is how the PC performs. For the series of benchmarks that were run using the machine, an Acer Predator XBN321HK G-Sync Gaming Monitor was used with V-Sync and G-Sync turned on for all tests. The Intel i7 6700K CPU and GPU were overclocked (OC) to 4.6GHz and 1360MHz respectively while the GTX 980Ti graphics card was also overclocked via its own software.
The results for both normal and overclocked performance for a variety of games can be found below:
- Just Cause 3
| Setting | Minimum Frame-Rate | Maximum Frame-Rate | Average Frame-Rate |
| Very High (4K) | 27 | 53 | 42 |
| Very High (4K + OC) | 9 | 62 | 51 |
2. Forza 6 Apex Beta
| Setting | Minimum Frame-Rate | Maximum Frame-Rate | Average Frame-Rate |
| Very High / Ultra (4K) | 57 | 60 | 60 |
| Very High / Ultra (4K + OC) | 58 | 60 | 60 |
3. GTA V
| Setting | Minimum Frame-Rate | Maximum Frame-Rate | Average Frame-Rate |
| Very High / Ultra (4K) | 30 | 62 | 48 |
| Very High / Ultra (4K + OC) | 34 | 62 | 51 |
4. DarkSouls 3 (1.03 Patch)
| Setting | Minimum Frame-Rate | Maximum Frame-Rate | Average Frame-Rate |
| Maximum (4K) | 35 | 52 | 40 |
| Maximum (4K + OC) | 37 | 57 | 45 |
5. Quantum Break (1.7 Patch)
| Setting | Minimum Frame-Rate | Maximum Frame-Rate | Average Frame-Rate |
| Maximum (4K) | 17 | 33 | 31 |
| Maximum (4K + OC) | 22 | 39 | 35 |
If you are not the sort of person who understands raw numbers very well, you can also check out game-play footage of some of the games mentioned by following the link here to get a general understanding of how these numbers translate to actual performance.
While the results obtained are not as consistent across every game, the PC delivers visuals that are more than playable in most cases. Let us know whether the results were as expected from a build of this caliber or did they manage to surprise you? As time progresses, more and more technology is introduced that may result in better consistency and the recently announced GTX 1080 graphics card may be able to do just that. These results will certainly be compared to the results obtained by the GTX 1080 graphics card sometime in a future build so stay tuned for that.
